So the groundhog said that Pennsylvania gets six more weeks of winter. I wish California had a groundhog to promise us six weeks of any sort of winter. This morning an overcast sky let a few sprinkles fall, but it was barely enough to turn the pavements dark. Then the sun emerged and soon dried them out again. The clouds later came back for a while, but brought no more rain, and now they are breaking up once more. The sky is lovely, but carries the grim portent of further drought.

The long range forecast says that beginning on Thursday there will be five days that are very likely or certain to bring rain. They are saying that there could be more than five inches in total, but I won't hold my breath. I've seen this before. The promises have too often vanished like the damp that darkened the pavements this morning.

As for snow, the lowest high during those five days is predicted to be 50 degrees, and the lowest nighttime low is to be 43 degrees. If the rain is that warm here, there's little chance it will be cold enough in the mountains to bring any snow. In short, next summer's severe water shortage has not been canceled.

There's something that I don't think is drought-related, but could yet be predictive of what this place could look like if the drought continues. A young pine tree on the far side of a neighboring yard has turned entirely brown, so it's dead. The tree was damaged in the blizzard we had more than a decade ago, so it looks rather odd and is somewhat stunted. It is so short that, should it fall, it wouldn't even reach my fence, so I'm in no danger from it. But it's very sad to see yet another tree dying. If we don't get enough rain I could end up very sad indeed when the entire forest starts dying. And there are several big trees that could reach my house were they to fall.